You realize that if I get an XML file, I can figure out what it is saying and decide what to do with it. With your ideal (binary) files, I need to reverse engineer the format.
With binary, I need permission to interoperate. With XML, I need a text editor (or print-out) and some common sense.
You worry all you want about the computer's efficiency. I use my machines to make my life easier. I don't jump through hoops to make the computer's life easier...
Let me give you a hypothetical case. One of our clients does about $50k/month on their web site. When the site was built, they were only expecting $10000-$15000/month. At the time, NN4 compatibility wasn't important, because the extra cost ($10k) wasn't going to be worth it. With NN4 sitting between 5% and 10% each month, they have decided that NN4 compatibility is important in the next version.
When we launched, 3 days of downtime a month was considered okay. It was considered a better choice than spending an extra $5k on hardware for redundancy. Well, when the site broke $40k/month, we immediately decided that that was no good and invested in the redundancy.
The site has had a few 15 minute outages over the past 6 months, and a 1 day outage over a holiday weekend (not a big deal). However, if the site doubles in revenue again, downtime is becoming less acceptable, and we'll drop $10k to avoid it.
If your site sucks and no one visits, downtime doesn't matter. If you are making lots of money, downtime does matter. $10k on hardware is worth it if the downtime would cost you $25k?
You told me you were IE 5.01, you get the IE Stylesheet. If Opera provided a separate User Agent, they would get their own Stylesheet hacks.
As it stands, NN4 gets the Netscape Stylesheet, NN3 gets no Stylesheet, Gecko gets the Gecko stylesheet, and everyone else gets the default one. I want to add Mac tweaked stylesheets as soon as I can.
Because Opera doesn't want to follow some basic rules of respect, WebTV will get customized support before Opera.
Blocking people on User Agent is rediculous. If you tell me what you want (via an HTTP Get) you get that file. If you want a customized stylesheet, you need to tell me what it should be.
I'm not going to throw Javascript hacks in. My pages are straight HTML/CSS, almost no Javascript. I'm certainly not going to add Javascript because Opera won't follow Net conventions.
All my pages validate to HTML 4.01 Transitional. I sent all the correct headers, etc.
However, if you make it easy (as IE, NN4, and NN6/Gecko have), I will test my site in your page and tweak the stylesheet. You'll get fonts that look good on your system, etc.
If you want to play games, like Opera, then you get ignored. Opera users should have no problem viewing the site, but it won't be customized for them. I won't do Javascript hacks (what happens if you turn off Javascript).
I will probably start tweaking for Omniweb on the Mac in the near future, but Opera users are completely on their own until Opera stops lying to me.
You need to write different stylesheets for Netscape 4 and IE/Mozilla, minimum. You probably need to write a different stylesheet for IE and Mozilla. Not too hard because you can detect that from the User Agent. Without server side scripting, it is more complicated to do it in HTML/Javascript, but its doable.
Opera is a special case. They LIE about themselves. They default to pretending to be IE.
I have NO idea if Opera is 1% of my users, 5%, 0%, or 50%. They LIE.
That really upsets me, and its short-sited. A button: fake IE mode, would work. Always faking it and making it hard (or impossible) to detect is outrageous.
The fact that all browsers fake being Mozilla (from Netscape's early dominance) is bad enough, but Opera is too far.
They have failed, miserably, in the PVR market. They have failed, miserably, in the game console market... twice (WinCE in the Dreamcast, Xbox). They have failed, miserably, in the personal accounting market (Intuit has repeatedly cleaned their clocks). Their entrance into the handheld market has been anything BUT a runaway success, though they leveraged confusion at Palm to grab a nice chunk of the market.
They have 4 major successes. They took the OS monopoly granted them by IBM (as a result of IBM facing an antitrust suit) and built a successful empire. They leveraged internal knowledge of "Chicago," (Windows 4.0/95) to get Office 95 on release and establish a near monopoly on desktop office suites. They leveraged their OS and finances to establish a near monopoly of Internet web browsers. They also used financial muscle to clip Borland off at the knees and establish a near monopoly in development software.
However, in the cases of their successes, they really leveraged a critical mistake by their competition. Even NT Server's rise was a combination of marketing and boneheaded moves by Novell. Novell has let everyone believe that they are dead, so NT ate a lot of their market. Linux is now a huge portion of the market.
I really don't understand why everyone believes that Microsoft is invincible. Look at how WordPerfect, Netscape, and Novell dropped the ball. Also look at how Apple dropped the ball.
Microsoft is great at release early and release often. They put out near beta code quickly to establish a beachhead. They then keep running at you, hard. Fail to innovate (Netscape and Real) and they will clobber you. Keep running ahead, and you can be the Intuit of the world.
Microsoft has a LOT of failures. MS SQL Server has NOT defeated Oracle and DB2 for the Enterprise "mass" market of databases. MS SQL Server gets most of its success from MS Shops that web deploy apps with VBScript ASPs. Low end web publishing uses MySQL+PHP, while the higher end does Java+JSP+Oracle. Those of us in the technically complex world without the heavy Enterprise backing do either PHP (or Perl) with PostgreSQL in the Unix camp OR ASP with MS SQL in the NT camp.
MSN has never defeated AOL, despite its early predictions (and 7 years of being pushed in MS's monopoly Oses). You're insane if you think that Xbox is competitive with the PS2 or Game Boy Advanced. It has been running even with Nintendo's Gamecube in 1 of the 3 major markets (trounced in two others) while Nintendo hasn't released a major title yet.
UltimateTV was a total flop. There are lots of failures, not just Microsoft Bob.
During the Civil War, the Union military developed a strategy to make manufacturing guns over 20x more efficient. Studying the numbers on the Springfield armory was fascinating.
Once this process was completed, there were clear capitalistic opportunities to exploit this technology. The government got out of the way, and let this manufacturing process make several Americans very, very rich.
The MIC gets pooh-poohed by liberals because of the military involvement, and conservatives for wasting money. However, it is part of the reason that this small country ( 300 million people) is able to dominate the globe economically. (The other parts are abundance of natural resources and the "protestant work ethic" that results in Americans working longer and harder than their European counterparts) The Federal government plows a LOT of money into basic research through the DOE, NIH, etc., as well as future reaching projects through the Air Force/NASA (Air Force does the real stuff, NASA is mostly to support the commercialization of space with a few stunts fed to the public).
Venture Capitalists do NOT fund research, they can't. Their model involves getting a return within either 7 or 10 years (depends on the fund). Basic research normally takes 20-50 years to come to complete fruition, and patents only last 20 now.
By pushing the envolope of science, we uncover new things to exploit. By developing them on US soil, the scientists most familiar with it are in the States. How many stories to you hear of successful companies that were started with someone that did basic research in a government funded lab. On Slashdot, we pooh-pooh that process, but the rest of the country sees it as an American success. They aren't worried that someone is making money, they are happy to see someone live the American Dream.
However, the government is not in a position to exploit technology for commercial gain. They are able to conduct research to support military projects, or conduct research to advance science. Then the American corporate sector is expected to do "research" to develop techniques to exploit this research. Then people get jobs and the economy grows.
Personally, I think that Ep 1 rivaled Empire as the best Star Wars at the time. I think that Ep 2 blows them all away. This nonsense about the original trilogy being better is absurd.
Jar Jar is NO MORE annoying than C-3PO, except that as a kid I thought that 3PO was funny, and Jar Jar was more annoying to a 20 year old.
The acting in the original trilogy is AWFUL. Hands down, the acting is better.
The dialogue STILL sucks.
However, ALL 5 movies are fun flicks. In all 5 movies, scenes on Tatooine (probably mispelled these days) dragged, though Ep2 sucked less in that regard.
They are fun. Luke/Anakin are whiny, Anakin being less whiny than ANH Luke.
These Space Operas are fun.
It isn't Sci-fi, because it isn't from the future... It's from a long, long time ago!
I spent $600 souping up my car radio for XM. I just wanted new toys (XM Radio, Aux input for the iPod, and 1.5 din to fit nicely). I take a lot of mid-length car trips 3-6 hours, so for them, I'd like to have music selected.
Sure the iPod is nice because we can listen to our music in the car, but it doesn't expose us to new music. For $10/month, I get exposed to new music, without having to find local stations as I drive around.
Gee, 99% of the 60s radicals wanted an excuse to do drugs and have sex. They railled against society and used it as an excuse for permiscuity. They were all then extremely comfortable moving out to the suburbs to live in an all-white community without minorities. From these comfortable homes, they shielded their children from society, voted for tough-on-crime measures, and support the war-on-drugs. They are extremely concerned that their children will be exposed to sex and drugs. In a word, the 60s as a culture has been invented by an entire GENERATION of spoiled brats. The "greatest generation" spoiled their children, and to this day they need to assert their superiority over everyone else. Notice that the same "hippies" that spit on our servicemen returning from Vietnam and protested Vietnam are all flying the USA Flag on their SUVs in suburbia?
I watched the past 6 years, it was amazing. We saw young technologists unleash disruptive technology that turned out understanding of retail and markets upside down. Sure the dumb money caused a boom-and-bust, but such is capitalism. There are numerous people publishing on the web, providing information. Sure most of the "clicks" are with a few major companies, but so what. Most of the time I don't need unusual information, major news sites handle my needs, but the wealth of information available when I am looking is astounding.
Look buddy, I have nothing against 17-22 years old that idolize the 60s and rail against the establishment. Good for you, have fun. Just try to realize when you're sitting in a coffee shop talking about the establishment being pathetic that you are full of shit. I love my lefty friends, but I also know to laugh at them when they talk about the evils of corporate America while sending the credit card bill home to daddy and spending his money.
The thing that makes America work is our willingness to get shit done. The French sit and whine, wanting a 35-hour work week, never to see battle, and a seat at the UN Security Council. Americans understand that when it comes time to do the heavy-lifting, its going to fall on us. While lefties (American and European) seem to have unlimited amounts of energy to bitch and moan about people benefiting from this heavy-lifting, most Americans realize that if the rock is going to move, we're going to move it.
The American people aren't pathetic, you are. Waxing philosophical about the irony of another Cold War ally taking our training and using it against us doesn't help. Facts not in dispute: Hussein (who, along with his sons, is a truly evil individual; which has nothing to do with our hegemonic reasons for fighting Iraq, but his family DOES consist of truly evil people) was dealt with 10 years ago, and may need to be dealt with again. Bin Ladin took our training and build an army for holy war, which is especially ironic given that our friends the Saudis fund it (and they ARE our friends, we back the House of Saud, they keep the oil flowing).
So, we created our nightmares? What's the point? We did what we had to do to win the Cold War, and we did win the Cold War. There are some costs that we are paying now. Most Americans realized that we were going to have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and head off to stop Al Qaeda. Sure most Americans don't understand Islam, have a trivial understanding of why they hate us, but have a terrific understanding of something that you are lacking "They hate us AND our way of life," at least when our way of life involves stationing troops in Arabia to keep the corrupt House of Saud in power (which we explain as keeping Iraq out of Saudi Arabia).
These "old radicals" were absurd in their day, and absurd now. The difference is that they were revered by the suburbanite middle class when they were "hippies" so they get to go on camera and be silly.
The anti-management sentiment on Slashdot is disgusting. Look, we ALL love Dilbert, and while there is a LOT of truth in Dilbert, it does ignore the other side.
Businesses, large and small, want to make money. Within large organizations, you do have some empire builders (managers that only care about building up their clout through headcount), but senior management normally looks at the bottom line.
Sure, CEOs may not realize that there is a strange policy in one small division that makes no sense, but they are overseeing the general policy decisions.
Slashdot users seem to think that all managers are like the assistant manager at the fast food joint they work at. Senior people work weekends. They check email and take calls all weekend. They take risks.
Middle management avoids risks, but so do engineers.
There is, however, a BIT of truth in the corporations want to feel safe. However, that situation is in large companies where IT is a small percentage of costs. If 15 minutes of network downtime costs the company more than the IT Departments monthly budget, then they are interested in feeling safe.
It all depends. If you are a high tech company, IT is a big chunk of your costs. If you are a manufacturing/distribution company, IT is likely a smaller percentage. However, if a network outage shuts down a factory where 2000 employees are doing nothing for 2 hours, they aren't going to be happy to learn that you passed on the redundant hardware Sun solution and hacked up a beige x86 box to save $15,000.
Corporations want to reduce costs and increase productivity. Part of this is lower cost solutions. Part of this is more reliable solutions.
Where Linux hurts is in the reliability camp, and that's largely a hardware issue. x86 hardware simply doesn't play in the same space that Sun's high end Unix Servers and IBM's mainframes do.
The fact that Linux is more reliable than Windows isn't that impressive... Intel was still (as of 2-3 years ago) still running their manufacturing processes on VAX systems.
However, saving $100 may seem like a lot to the users here posting from the parent's house, but it isn't a big deal IF it exposes you to greater problems later on.
Muslims are practioners of Islam. Islamists are followers of political Islam. They are attempting to establish Islamic states.
Islamists aren't the same as Muslim terrorists, however. The PLO members are Muslim terrorists, but they wish to set up a secular despotic regime (like the Iraqi government).
Hamas is an Islamist terrorist group, that wants to set up an Islamic regime, like Iran or the Taliban were in Afghanistan.
It is extremely unlikely that Christian Americans like Oklahoma City and the Unabomber would detonate a nuclear device in this country. That would advance either individual's aims.
Islamists, however, aren't attempting to change the US, they are attempting to collapse secular Arab states. While the Saudi royal family (the house of Saud governs the bulk of Arabia, hence the name of the kingdom Saudi Arabia) are religious Muslims, they have not imposes an Islamic regime. The goal of Bin Ladin's network was to collapse the House of Saud and impose an Islamic regime there. Attacking the US was an attempt to get the US to stop propping the Saudi regime up (which will happen someday after the Saudi oil fields dry up).
Don't lecture me on dictionary definition, or call me a racist, just because you don't really understand what is going on.
Just what we need, breeder reactors... We really needs our business sector producing weapons grade plutonium.
Look, our private sector does some things extremely well. They produce desired goods at the lowest cost of anyone in the world. Our private sector truly dominates at the economic game.
However, they don't handle eliminating risks well, because it's expensive. We don't need weapons grade plutonium being guarded by $8/hr rent-a-cops. If we were that irresponsible, we'd be the French.
Too much risk of a single weapon getting out. Without missile defense, a single ICBM can blackmail America. Even with missile defense, a suicide bomber with a nuke in lower Manhattan is too dangerous. They could probably wipe out most of downtown Manhattan (making it a real ground zero), and truly screw up the rest of the island.
Breeder reactors cannot be used until we have the Islamists eliminated.
Quickbooks does corporate/business accounting. If you want double-entry accounting, buy Quickbooks. You don't need the Pro version for real estate and most small businesses.
Complaining about Quicken's single-entry bookkeeping is the most retarded complaint, no offense. You're complaining that the personal finance stuff doesn't do business style accounting? That would be a valid complaint except the SAME company offers a business version cheaply (it's less than $200) that does what you want.
I use Quicken Deluxe for my personal finances where I don't want double-entry and other garbage. I use Quickbooks for my corporate accounting where I need to do invoicing, credit memos, various accounts, etc.
My personal accounting consists of a checking account, investment account, and some credit cards. My corporate accounting is more complicated and needs to be more complicated.
Expect a Nintendo price drop shortly. Nintendo has stated that they would drop prices if Sony dropped to $200. Sony has dropped to $200. Now, nothing requires Nintendo to make good on their threat, but harming their credibility hurts them in future threats (Game theory 101).
My personal feeling is that Nintendo will drop prices in Sept./October at the latest. They need to have their price edge for the next holiday season. Dropping now doesn't give them the impace of a holiday price drop, and they aren't really ready to push the Gamecube until they have a Mario game out.
Even without a price drop, I'd expect a $200 bundle of Gamecube/Mario Sunshine or something similar.
I have a Panasonic branded Replay 2000. I'm really intrigued by Tivo Series2 and Replay 4x00, but I can't justify jumping to this generation, I'll upgrade in generation 3.
Now, one of the problems with the Replay and Tivo is that while you can conveniently time shift with them (great to not miss shows and have them waitting for me when I get home at ~9:30 PM), you can't conveniently space shift. When I move out of my dinky apartment and into a large apartment or small hour, I'll have more than one television. I then have the choice of building an advanced audio/video distribution system (which are VERY cool, BTW, but don't exist for DTV/HDTV and DD/DTS signals, just NTSC/Stereo), or placing a Replay/Tivo in every room.
Being able to send from one ReplayTV to another in the house is a useful feature. It's part of an attempt to also sell multiple ReplayTVs to people. My understanding was that the shows could be sent over the LAN or Internet. LAN would be quick, a few minutes to grab the show, Internet would take a while.
Sometimes my friends miss shows that I want. Sometimes my IR blaster fails to change the channel and grab the show. I'd love to be able to have someone send it to me so I can watch it.
Ironically, with ReplayTV, I don't spend commercial breaks in the kitchen getting more food. It's probably helped me lose 2-3 lbs., reduce my television watching, and increase my commercial viewing. Sure I only watch really well done and funny commercials, but I used to watch no commercials.
For any industry people watching, grabbing the last advertisements on action shows/movies may help. I got yelled at by the fiancee for over skipping and seeing the resolution of a cliff hanger then going back that we usually end up watching 1-2 commercials to avoid it.
Ya know, all those "normal" people that I'm sure everyone on slashdot is bashing, just keep something in mind. That silent majority of Americans that get up every morning, work hard, pay their taxes, etc., don't take much from society (probably didn't get Federal aid to go to college, aren't milking the system for grant money, etc.) support most of your life styles.
While all the IT workers that put in 60 hrs weeks (with 20 hrs of work, 40 hrs of playing Quake and laughing at the "rest of the world") "struggle" with their jobs being underappreciated (only getting paid 1.5x-2.0x the median income for a family of 4) because the masses don't worship them, these people that you're mocking are the reasons that their is a demand for your services.
Especially the students enjoying the free/subsidized education, realize that these people you are mocking for being stupid are paying for your education. I guess that doesn't matter, because THEY paid for YOUR education, so you're better then them.
Perhaps everyone here that lives in the "blue" parts of the map should read this thread over and wonder why the "red" parts of the map hates you guys.
Communism fell for two reasons.
1. It can be (in all but the most theoretical case) less efficient for consumers than capitalism.
2. It was adopted by agrarian societies.
Marx's theories were NOT that communism was an alternative to capitalism. Just as capitalism evolved out of mercantilism (which evolved out of feudalism), capitalism would evolve INTO socialism/communism. Marx NEVER advocated that poor countries should become communists. The problem was that poorer countries have people that are less inclined to believe in capitalism, and get more focused on grabbing and taking the little wealth that is there for themselves. Capitalism takes a long time to reach the mature point that the US topped off in in the mid-late 20th century. Its only then that there is heavy upward mobility available to all.
Western Europe and to some extent the United States supports this theory. As countries develop stronger economies and wealthier societies, they start deciding that the capitalistic reality of winners and losers is "bad." You end up with ridiculous crap like national health care or other instances of a welfare state (socializing parts of the country).
When enough members of society decide that they would rather eliminate winners and losers by all being losers, you drift into socialism.
Marx inspired soviet communism, but their command economy functioned more like fascism. Compare the US and Russia in 1917, then look at how well the Soviets kept up for the next 60 years.
A simplified explanation: An economy can spend money on capital goods (which help you produce more goods in the future) or consumer goods (which are consumed now, making people happier). The US economy is somewhere on the order of 90%-95% consumer goods. The Soviet Union did something like 30% capital goods. They forced a growth of industry. The problem was the lines for food; 10 year waits for cars, etc. They under produced stuff for their citizens. Additionally, production wasn't focused on the Darwinian process of capitalism (where production is normally demand focused, though advertising can be used to try to shift demand), but on the whims of the central command. This is where communism is VERY inefficient; people produce what a committee tells them. In a capitalistic world, every company has its own committees. Those that produce the wrong stuff suffer, if they produce the right stuff they do well. That's the capitalism advantage.
The issue of success motivation is a more minor point though it makes a better "US-vs-THEM" split in the American mind. It does retard the efforts of SOME of the top brains/innovators who don't think/innovate without a profit motive. However, most talented people try to succeed, regardless of the incentive, so this is more of a minor point. OTOH, without the profit incentive, it's a lot harder to think that we'd bust ass 60 hrs/week instead of just getting by like everyone else. So you definitely lose something there.
Communism was never intended to "replace" capitalism by the violent revolutions that it was. It was supposed to be the workers throwing down their chains in DEVELOPED countries and seizing control. They would remove the capitalists from the equation (investors who just provide money) and let the people own their own means of production.
To do so, you NEED mean of production to seize. Therefore, you become communistic AFTER the capitalists build in the economy. In this scenario, there are already lots of things for people. If the US were to become a Marxist state right now, we'd probably all be less upset. We'd have our current standard of livings. Sure we'd stop the improvements in our standard of living, but we'd be doing so now, not with the standard of livings that the Czars left their people with.
I do not, BTW, advocate communism in the least. I'm thrilled that Reagan discredited it by showing the Soviet Union's economy to be a farce. The military buildup and arms race forced a growing percentage of the economy to be for the military and military industrial complex. The strong American economy could weather this, the weak paper economy of the Soviets collapsed under the pressure to produce more military goods, further stifling the consumer "economy" leading to massive dissatisfaction. The lack of profit incentives (that do affect medium sized business, though larger businesses tend to become really bureaucratic empire builders) masked a lot of corruption that caused the economy to be much smaller than the planners envisioned.
However, in being an unabashed capitalist, I do read. You should know the positions of others and their role in history. Simply writing comments like that indicate a lack in education. Try to study the liberal arts more and you'll be a more well rounded person (and in a different way that most techies become rounded over time).
I usually buy 1-2 games a month. I'm really stretched for time, there are games that I've bought in the past few months that I haven't played.
With IGN, I don't buy Gamecube games that suck. I avoided Spy Hunter because of their review. I later played it at a friend's place, I'm glad I didn't buy the game.
If you avoid 1 bad game purchase every 2-3 years from a subscription to a online gaming mag, it's paid for itself.
They make money off licensing and publishing. If I could download the Devkit, what would I pay MS for, a pretty little "seal of quality" logo? By controlling the Devkits, you only get one with a contract. The contract results in licensing fees.
Microsoft hyped the Nvidia chipset and the P3 processor when they announced the project. They talked about the state-of-the-art components to get computer gamers to get excited.
Now they go down in flames.
Using an Intel x86 (with 20 years of backwards compatibility cruft) saves on R&D costs but increases chip chosts. Nintendo and Sony's decision to bite the R&D bullet but lower the component costs was the correct one.
Microsoft went in with the attitude of release Xbox, release Homestation in 2 years. The strategy was to launch a WebTV/UltimateTV/Xbox combo in two years. Two years to bring costs down (though you'd toss a big-ass hard drive in Homestation) so Homestation would be affordable (has to be less than $500, possible the $300 price point of Xbox).
By launching Xbox two years before the real product launch, they get some revenue from game sales and establish a beach head.
Xbox's failures in Japan and Europe will hurt badly. The real question will be if Homestation ever launches, and if so will it be an Xbox2 or Xbox+. Backwards compatibility is important in this strategy. Do they just add features (Xbox+) or rev the processor and just play the old games.
I don't know that MS can do this 2-3 year upgrade cycle, we'll see.
I agree with another poster in this article, MS damaged the PC Gaming market with this entry. They may really suffer for this or benefit. For Xbox to really take off, they want to kill PC gaming to be replaced with their console... we shall see.
Had an interesting conversation with friend who works at Microsoft... He agrees that there isn't enough exposure to non-MS products among the employees.
The Saturn was the first system sold at a loss. It was NOT normal or usual prior to that. Sure consoles didn't make the money, games did, but the marginal loss was a Sega invention.
They build the Saturn, it was too expensive. They needed a hit to follow on the Genny and the 32X was a disaster. They sold at what the market could bear, losing money.
In fact, Sega tried to get the stores to lose money on the sales as well. The Saturn killed Sega. They then created a business model around moving LOTS of Dreamcasts and lots of games. They didn't have enough capital.
Sega died from poor business decisions.
The Gamecube is the first Nintendo system sold at a loss, and it is apparently in the $10-$20/console range, not the $100+ range of Xbox.
If you make money/break even on hardware, and make money on software, you make money in the console business. Sony copied Sega's practice of selling at a loss, but they successfully moved units.
Nintendo made more money than Sony's video game division did during the years that the PSX was destroying the N64.
If you make money on everything, you make money. All you risk is your initial fixed costs. If you lose money on each item and plan to make more elsewhere, you're running in dangerous territory.
Microsoft can afford to lose money for 4+ years to make it up in years 5 and 6. Sega couldn't.
Yes, I can check on the referrer field. Ya know, that still creates a problem if someone's browser doesn't properly report a referrer field, etc.
I'm not even talking frames, what if I were to structure two particular pages as a series to tell a story. Perhaps a before and after that it is important that users see in that story. That, for example, was the example given on useit.com.
I can tell the robots to stay out, and I think that being able to ask people not to fuck with me site is reasonable.
Your argument is that I should risk alienating a legit user whose browser is screwy on the referrer field because another webmaster is being an asshole. That's fucking bullshit.
I do far more complicated parsing of requests than you understand.
I really don't understand why everyone on Slashdot seems to advocate being an asshole. Do any of you have friends? I certainly wouldn't be friends with someone that steals stuff from my house while I'm in the bathroom then tells me that I shouldn't have let people rummage around my house without watching them. And the Slashdot attitude seems to suggest that.
Look, the content industry is doing some disasterous things to copyright, granted, but it really isn't something that should be front and center right now.
In case you forget, we're fighting a war in Afghanistan because we believe that the coordinators of some Kamikazi attacks on us happened there.
The White House is terrified that Iraq is close to weapons of mass destruction, and the "enlightened" Europeans are throwing a tempertantrum that Israel is defending itself. Europe is joining the fray by attacking Jews in their own country.
The Saudi regime is scared of an Islamist rebellion (which would cut off our oil access), and other problems that are forcing the Bush administration to back off Iraq, possible too long.
And you want them to DROP coverage of THIS to discuss attempts to make duplication of digital audio/video harder?
Ya know, I bet you lots of bullshit like this would have gone ignored during the last World War as well. Sometimes you need to get our of your Slashdot bubble.
Slashdot Mirror
You realize that if I get an XML file, I can figure out what it is saying and decide what to do with it. With your ideal (binary) files, I need to reverse engineer the format.
With binary, I need permission to interoperate. With XML, I need a text editor (or print-out) and some common sense.
You worry all you want about the computer's efficiency. I use my machines to make my life easier. I don't jump through hoops to make the computer's life easier...
Taking troll bait,
Alex
Let me give you a hypothetical case. One of our clients does about $50k/month on their web site. When the site was built, they were only expecting $10000-$15000/month. At the time, NN4 compatibility wasn't important, because the extra cost ($10k) wasn't going to be worth it. With NN4 sitting between 5% and 10% each month, they have decided that NN4 compatibility is important in the next version.
When we launched, 3 days of downtime a month was considered okay. It was considered a better choice than spending an extra $5k on hardware for redundancy. Well, when the site broke $40k/month, we immediately decided that that was no good and invested in the redundancy.
The site has had a few 15 minute outages over the past 6 months, and a 1 day outage over a holiday weekend (not a big deal). However, if the site doubles in revenue again, downtime is becoming less acceptable, and we'll drop $10k to avoid it.
If your site sucks and no one visits, downtime doesn't matter. If you are making lots of money, downtime does matter. $10k on hardware is worth it if the downtime would cost you $25k?
Alex
I don't like being lied too.
It is certainly at the discretion of the browser.
You told me you were IE 5.01, you get the IE Stylesheet. If Opera provided a separate User Agent, they would get their own Stylesheet hacks.
As it stands, NN4 gets the Netscape Stylesheet, NN3 gets no Stylesheet, Gecko gets the Gecko stylesheet, and everyone else gets the default one. I want to add Mac tweaked stylesheets as soon as I can.
Because Opera doesn't want to follow some basic rules of respect, WebTV will get customized support before Opera.
Blocking people on User Agent is rediculous. If you tell me what you want (via an HTTP Get) you get that file. If you want a customized stylesheet, you need to tell me what it should be.
I'm not going to throw Javascript hacks in. My pages are straight HTML/CSS, almost no Javascript. I'm certainly not going to add Javascript because Opera won't follow Net conventions.
Alex
All my pages validate to HTML 4.01 Transitional. I sent all the correct headers, etc.
However, if you make it easy (as IE, NN4, and NN6/Gecko have), I will test my site in your page and tweak the stylesheet. You'll get fonts that look good on your system, etc.
If you want to play games, like Opera, then you get ignored. Opera users should have no problem viewing the site, but it won't be customized for them. I won't do Javascript hacks (what happens if you turn off Javascript).
I will probably start tweaking for Omniweb on the Mac in the near future, but Opera users are completely on their own until Opera stops lying to me.
Alex
You need to write different stylesheets for Netscape 4 and IE/Mozilla, minimum. You probably need to write a different stylesheet for IE and Mozilla. Not too hard because you can detect that from the User Agent. Without server side scripting, it is more complicated to do it in HTML/Javascript, but its doable.
Opera is a special case. They LIE about themselves. They default to pretending to be IE.
I have NO idea if Opera is 1% of my users, 5%, 0%, or 50%. They LIE.
That really upsets me, and its short-sited. A button: fake IE mode, would work. Always faking it and making it hard (or impossible) to detect is outrageous.
The fact that all browsers fake being Mozilla (from Netscape's early dominance) is bad enough, but Opera is too far.
Alex
They have failed, miserably, in the PVR market. They have failed, miserably, in the game console market... twice (WinCE in the Dreamcast, Xbox). They have failed, miserably, in the personal accounting market (Intuit has repeatedly cleaned their clocks). Their entrance into the handheld market has been anything BUT a runaway success, though they leveraged confusion at Palm to grab a nice chunk of the market.
They have 4 major successes. They took the OS monopoly granted them by IBM (as a result of IBM facing an antitrust suit) and built a successful empire. They leveraged internal knowledge of "Chicago," (Windows 4.0/95) to get Office 95 on release and establish a near monopoly on desktop office suites. They leveraged their OS and finances to establish a near monopoly of Internet web browsers. They also used financial muscle to clip Borland off at the knees and establish a near monopoly in development software.
However, in the cases of their successes, they really leveraged a critical mistake by their competition. Even NT Server's rise was a combination of marketing and boneheaded moves by Novell. Novell has let everyone believe that they are dead, so NT ate a lot of their market. Linux is now a huge portion of the market.
I really don't understand why everyone believes that Microsoft is invincible. Look at how WordPerfect, Netscape, and Novell dropped the ball. Also look at how Apple dropped the ball.
Microsoft is great at release early and release often. They put out near beta code quickly to establish a beachhead. They then keep running at you, hard. Fail to innovate (Netscape and Real) and they will clobber you. Keep running ahead, and you can be the Intuit of the world.
Microsoft has a LOT of failures. MS SQL Server has NOT defeated Oracle and DB2 for the Enterprise "mass" market of databases. MS SQL Server gets most of its success from MS Shops that web deploy apps with VBScript ASPs. Low end web publishing uses MySQL+PHP, while the higher end does Java+JSP+Oracle. Those of us in the technically complex world without the heavy Enterprise backing do either PHP (or Perl) with PostgreSQL in the Unix camp OR ASP with MS SQL in the NT camp.
MSN has never defeated AOL, despite its early predictions (and 7 years of being pushed in MS's monopoly Oses). You're insane if you think that Xbox is competitive with the PS2 or Game Boy Advanced. It has been running even with Nintendo's Gamecube in 1 of the 3 major markets (trounced in two others) while Nintendo hasn't released a major title yet.
UltimateTV was a total flop. There are lots of failures, not just Microsoft Bob.
Get a grip people,
Alex
During the Civil War, the Union military developed a strategy to make manufacturing guns over 20x more efficient. Studying the numbers on the Springfield armory was fascinating.
Once this process was completed, there were clear capitalistic opportunities to exploit this technology. The government got out of the way, and let this manufacturing process make several Americans very, very rich.
The MIC gets pooh-poohed by liberals because of the military involvement, and conservatives for wasting money. However, it is part of the reason that this small country ( 300 million people) is able to dominate the globe economically. (The other parts are abundance of natural resources and the "protestant work ethic" that results in Americans working longer and harder than their European counterparts) The Federal government plows a LOT of money into basic research through the DOE, NIH, etc., as well as future reaching projects through the Air Force/NASA (Air Force does the real stuff, NASA is mostly to support the commercialization of space with a few stunts fed to the public).
Venture Capitalists do NOT fund research, they can't. Their model involves getting a return within either 7 or 10 years (depends on the fund). Basic research normally takes 20-50 years to come to complete fruition, and patents only last 20 now.
By pushing the envolope of science, we uncover new things to exploit. By developing them on US soil, the scientists most familiar with it are in the States. How many stories to you hear of successful companies that were started with someone that did basic research in a government funded lab. On Slashdot, we pooh-pooh that process, but the rest of the country sees it as an American success. They aren't worried that someone is making money, they are happy to see someone live the American Dream.
However, the government is not in a position to exploit technology for commercial gain. They are able to conduct research to support military projects, or conduct research to advance science. Then the American corporate sector is expected to do "research" to develop techniques to exploit this research. Then people get jobs and the economy grows.
Alex
Personally, I think that Ep 1 rivaled Empire as the best Star Wars at the time. I think that Ep 2 blows them all away. This nonsense about the original trilogy being better is absurd.
Jar Jar is NO MORE annoying than C-3PO, except that as a kid I thought that 3PO was funny, and Jar Jar was more annoying to a 20 year old.
The acting in the original trilogy is AWFUL. Hands down, the acting is better.
The dialogue STILL sucks.
However, ALL 5 movies are fun flicks. In all 5 movies, scenes on Tatooine (probably mispelled these days) dragged, though Ep2 sucked less in that regard.
They are fun. Luke/Anakin are whiny, Anakin being less whiny than ANH Luke.
These Space Operas are fun.
It isn't Sci-fi, because it isn't from the future... It's from a long, long time ago!
Alex
I spent $600 souping up my car radio for XM. I just wanted new toys (XM Radio, Aux input for the iPod, and 1.5 din to fit nicely). I take a lot of mid-length car trips 3-6 hours, so for them, I'd like to have music selected.
Sure the iPod is nice because we can listen to our music in the car, but it doesn't expose us to new music. For $10/month, I get exposed to new music, without having to find local stations as I drive around.
Alex
Gee, 99% of the 60s radicals wanted an excuse to do drugs and have sex. They railled against society and used it as an excuse for permiscuity. They were all then extremely comfortable moving out to the suburbs to live in an all-white community without minorities. From these comfortable homes, they shielded their children from society, voted for tough-on-crime measures, and support the war-on-drugs. They are extremely concerned that their children will be exposed to sex and drugs. In a word, the 60s as a culture has been invented by an entire GENERATION of spoiled brats. The "greatest generation" spoiled their children, and to this day they need to assert their superiority over everyone else. Notice that the same "hippies" that spit on our servicemen returning from Vietnam and protested Vietnam are all flying the USA Flag on their SUVs in suburbia?
I watched the past 6 years, it was amazing. We saw young technologists unleash disruptive technology that turned out understanding of retail and markets upside down. Sure the dumb money caused a boom-and-bust, but such is capitalism. There are numerous people publishing on the web, providing information. Sure most of the "clicks" are with a few major companies, but so what. Most of the time I don't need unusual information, major news sites handle my needs, but the wealth of information available when I am looking is astounding.
Look buddy, I have nothing against 17-22 years old that idolize the 60s and rail against the establishment. Good for you, have fun. Just try to realize when you're sitting in a coffee shop talking about the establishment being pathetic that you are full of shit. I love my lefty friends, but I also know to laugh at them when they talk about the evils of corporate America while sending the credit card bill home to daddy and spending his money.
The thing that makes America work is our willingness to get shit done. The French sit and whine, wanting a 35-hour work week, never to see battle, and a seat at the UN Security Council. Americans understand that when it comes time to do the heavy-lifting, its going to fall on us. While lefties (American and European) seem to have unlimited amounts of energy to bitch and moan about people benefiting from this heavy-lifting, most Americans realize that if the rock is going to move, we're going to move it.
The American people aren't pathetic, you are. Waxing philosophical about the irony of another Cold War ally taking our training and using it against us doesn't help. Facts not in dispute: Hussein (who, along with his sons, is a truly evil individual; which has nothing to do with our hegemonic reasons for fighting Iraq, but his family DOES consist of truly evil people) was dealt with 10 years ago, and may need to be dealt with again. Bin Ladin took our training and build an army for holy war, which is especially ironic given that our friends the Saudis fund it (and they ARE our friends, we back the House of Saud, they keep the oil flowing).
So, we created our nightmares? What's the point? We did what we had to do to win the Cold War, and we did win the Cold War. There are some costs that we are paying now. Most Americans realized that we were going to have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and head off to stop Al Qaeda. Sure most Americans don't understand Islam, have a trivial understanding of why they hate us, but have a terrific understanding of something that you are lacking "They hate us AND our way of life," at least when our way of life involves stationing troops in Arabia to keep the corrupt House of Saud in power (which we explain as keeping Iraq out of Saudi Arabia).
These "old radicals" were absurd in their day, and absurd now. The difference is that they were revered by the suburbanite middle class when they were "hippies" so they get to go on camera and be silly.
Geeze buddy, grow up.
Alex
The anti-management sentiment on Slashdot is disgusting. Look, we ALL love Dilbert, and while there is a LOT of truth in Dilbert, it does ignore the other side.
Businesses, large and small, want to make money. Within large organizations, you do have some empire builders (managers that only care about building up their clout through headcount), but senior management normally looks at the bottom line.
Sure, CEOs may not realize that there is a strange policy in one small division that makes no sense, but they are overseeing the general policy decisions.
Slashdot users seem to think that all managers are like the assistant manager at the fast food joint they work at. Senior people work weekends. They check email and take calls all weekend. They take risks.
Middle management avoids risks, but so do engineers.
There is, however, a BIT of truth in the corporations want to feel safe. However, that situation is in large companies where IT is a small percentage of costs. If 15 minutes of network downtime costs the company more than the IT Departments monthly budget, then they are interested in feeling safe.
It all depends. If you are a high tech company, IT is a big chunk of your costs. If you are a manufacturing/distribution company, IT is likely a smaller percentage. However, if a network outage shuts down a factory where 2000 employees are doing nothing for 2 hours, they aren't going to be happy to learn that you passed on the redundant hardware Sun solution and hacked up a beige x86 box to save $15,000.
Corporations want to reduce costs and increase productivity. Part of this is lower cost solutions. Part of this is more reliable solutions.
Where Linux hurts is in the reliability camp, and that's largely a hardware issue. x86 hardware simply doesn't play in the same space that Sun's high end Unix Servers and IBM's mainframes do.
The fact that Linux is more reliable than Windows isn't that impressive... Intel was still (as of 2-3 years ago) still running their manufacturing processes on VAX systems.
However, saving $100 may seem like a lot to the users here posting from the parent's house, but it isn't a big deal IF it exposes you to greater problems later on.
Alex
Muslims are practioners of Islam. Islamists are followers of political Islam. They are attempting to establish Islamic states.
Islamists aren't the same as Muslim terrorists, however. The PLO members are Muslim terrorists, but they wish to set up a secular despotic regime (like the Iraqi government).
Hamas is an Islamist terrorist group, that wants to set up an Islamic regime, like Iran or the Taliban were in Afghanistan.
It is extremely unlikely that Christian Americans like Oklahoma City and the Unabomber would detonate a nuclear device in this country. That would advance either individual's aims.
Islamists, however, aren't attempting to change the US, they are attempting to collapse secular Arab states. While the Saudi royal family (the house of Saud governs the bulk of Arabia, hence the name of the kingdom Saudi Arabia) are religious Muslims, they have not imposes an Islamic regime. The goal of Bin Ladin's network was to collapse the House of Saud and impose an Islamic regime there. Attacking the US was an attempt to get the US to stop propping the Saudi regime up (which will happen someday after the Saudi oil fields dry up).
Don't lecture me on dictionary definition, or call me a racist, just because you don't really understand what is going on.
Alex
Just what we need, breeder reactors... We really needs our business sector producing weapons grade plutonium.
Look, our private sector does some things extremely well. They produce desired goods at the lowest cost of anyone in the world. Our private sector truly dominates at the economic game.
However, they don't handle eliminating risks well, because it's expensive. We don't need weapons grade plutonium being guarded by $8/hr rent-a-cops. If we were that irresponsible, we'd be the French.
Too much risk of a single weapon getting out. Without missile defense, a single ICBM can blackmail America. Even with missile defense, a suicide bomber with a nuke in lower Manhattan is too dangerous. They could probably wipe out most of downtown Manhattan (making it a real ground zero), and truly screw up the rest of the island.
Breeder reactors cannot be used until we have the Islamists eliminated.
Alex
Quickbooks does corporate/business accounting. If you want double-entry accounting, buy Quickbooks. You don't need the Pro version for real estate and most small businesses.
Complaining about Quicken's single-entry bookkeeping is the most retarded complaint, no offense. You're complaining that the personal finance stuff doesn't do business style accounting? That would be a valid complaint except the SAME company offers a business version cheaply (it's less than $200) that does what you want.
I use Quicken Deluxe for my personal finances where I don't want double-entry and other garbage. I use Quickbooks for my corporate accounting where I need to do invoicing, credit memos, various accounts, etc.
My personal accounting consists of a checking account, investment account, and some credit cards. My corporate accounting is more complicated and needs to be more complicated.
Alex
Expect a Nintendo price drop shortly. Nintendo has stated that they would drop prices if Sony dropped to $200. Sony has dropped to $200. Now, nothing requires Nintendo to make good on their threat, but harming their credibility hurts them in future threats (Game theory 101).
My personal feeling is that Nintendo will drop prices in Sept./October at the latest. They need to have their price edge for the next holiday season. Dropping now doesn't give them the impace of a holiday price drop, and they aren't really ready to push the Gamecube until they have a Mario game out.
Even without a price drop, I'd expect a $200 bundle of Gamecube/Mario Sunshine or something similar.
I have a Panasonic branded Replay 2000. I'm really intrigued by Tivo Series2 and Replay 4x00, but I can't justify jumping to this generation, I'll upgrade in generation 3.
Now, one of the problems with the Replay and Tivo is that while you can conveniently time shift with them (great to not miss shows and have them waitting for me when I get home at ~9:30 PM), you can't conveniently space shift. When I move out of my dinky apartment and into a large apartment or small hour, I'll have more than one television. I then have the choice of building an advanced audio/video distribution system (which are VERY cool, BTW, but don't exist for DTV/HDTV and DD/DTS signals, just NTSC/Stereo), or placing a Replay/Tivo in every room.
Being able to send from one ReplayTV to another in the house is a useful feature. It's part of an attempt to also sell multiple ReplayTVs to people. My understanding was that the shows could be sent over the LAN or Internet. LAN would be quick, a few minutes to grab the show, Internet would take a while.
Sometimes my friends miss shows that I want. Sometimes my IR blaster fails to change the channel and grab the show. I'd love to be able to have someone send it to me so I can watch it.
Ironically, with ReplayTV, I don't spend commercial breaks in the kitchen getting more food. It's probably helped me lose 2-3 lbs., reduce my television watching, and increase my commercial viewing. Sure I only watch really well done and funny commercials, but I used to watch no commercials.
For any industry people watching, grabbing the last advertisements on action shows/movies may help. I got yelled at by the fiancee for over skipping and seeing the resolution of a cliff hanger then going back that we usually end up watching 1-2 commercials to avoid it.
Alex
Ya know, all those "normal" people that I'm sure everyone on slashdot is bashing, just keep something in mind. That silent majority of Americans that get up every morning, work hard, pay their taxes, etc., don't take much from society (probably didn't get Federal aid to go to college, aren't milking the system for grant money, etc.) support most of your life styles.
While all the IT workers that put in 60 hrs weeks (with 20 hrs of work, 40 hrs of playing Quake and laughing at the "rest of the world") "struggle" with their jobs being underappreciated (only getting paid 1.5x-2.0x the median income for a family of 4) because the masses don't worship them, these people that you're mocking are the reasons that their is a demand for your services.
Especially the students enjoying the free/subsidized education, realize that these people you are mocking for being stupid are paying for your education. I guess that doesn't matter, because THEY paid for YOUR education, so you're better then them.
Perhaps everyone here that lives in the "blue" parts of the map should read this thread over and wonder why the "red" parts of the map hates you guys.
Communism fell for two reasons.
1. It can be (in all but the most theoretical case) less efficient for consumers than capitalism.
2. It was adopted by agrarian societies.
Marx's theories were NOT that communism was an alternative to capitalism. Just as capitalism evolved out of mercantilism (which evolved out of feudalism), capitalism would evolve INTO socialism/communism. Marx NEVER advocated that poor countries should become communists. The problem was that poorer countries have people that are less inclined to believe in capitalism, and get more focused on grabbing and taking the little wealth that is there for themselves. Capitalism takes a long time to reach the mature point that the US topped off in in the mid-late 20th century. Its only then that there is heavy upward mobility available to all.
Western Europe and to some extent the United States supports this theory. As countries develop stronger economies and wealthier societies, they start deciding that the capitalistic reality of winners and losers is "bad." You end up with ridiculous crap like national health care or other instances of a welfare state (socializing parts of the country).
When enough members of society decide that they would rather eliminate winners and losers by all being losers, you drift into socialism.
Marx inspired soviet communism, but their command economy functioned more like fascism. Compare the US and Russia in 1917, then look at how well the Soviets kept up for the next 60 years.
A simplified explanation: An economy can spend money on capital goods (which help you produce more goods in the future) or consumer goods (which are consumed now, making people happier). The US economy is somewhere on the order of 90%-95% consumer goods. The Soviet Union did something like 30% capital goods. They forced a growth of industry. The problem was the lines for food; 10 year waits for cars, etc. They under produced stuff for their citizens. Additionally, production wasn't focused on the Darwinian process of capitalism (where production is normally demand focused, though advertising can be used to try to shift demand), but on the whims of the central command. This is where communism is VERY inefficient; people produce what a committee tells them. In a capitalistic world, every company has its own committees. Those that produce the wrong stuff suffer, if they produce the right stuff they do well. That's the capitalism advantage.
The issue of success motivation is a more minor point though it makes a better "US-vs-THEM" split in the American mind. It does retard the efforts of SOME of the top brains/innovators who don't think/innovate without a profit motive. However, most talented people try to succeed, regardless of the incentive, so this is more of a minor point. OTOH, without the profit incentive, it's a lot harder to think that we'd bust ass 60 hrs/week instead of just getting by like everyone else. So you definitely lose something there.
Communism was never intended to "replace" capitalism by the violent revolutions that it was. It was supposed to be the workers throwing down their chains in DEVELOPED countries and seizing control. They would remove the capitalists from the equation (investors who just provide money) and let the people own their own means of production.
To do so, you NEED mean of production to seize. Therefore, you become communistic AFTER the capitalists build in the economy. In this scenario, there are already lots of things for people. If the US were to become a Marxist state right now, we'd probably all be less upset. We'd have our current standard of livings. Sure we'd stop the improvements in our standard of living, but we'd be doing so now, not with the standard of livings that the Czars left their people with.
I do not, BTW, advocate communism in the least. I'm thrilled that Reagan discredited it by showing the Soviet Union's economy to be a farce. The military buildup and arms race forced a growing percentage of the economy to be for the military and military industrial complex. The strong American economy could weather this, the weak paper economy of the Soviets collapsed under the pressure to produce more military goods, further stifling the consumer "economy" leading to massive dissatisfaction. The lack of profit incentives (that do affect medium sized business, though larger businesses tend to become really bureaucratic empire builders) masked a lot of corruption that caused the economy to be much smaller than the planners envisioned.
However, in being an unabashed capitalist, I do read. You should know the positions of others and their role in history. Simply writing comments like that indicate a lack in education. Try to study the liberal arts more and you'll be a more well rounded person (and in a different way that most techies become rounded over time).
I usually buy 1-2 games a month. I'm really stretched for time, there are games that I've bought in the past few months that I haven't played.
With IGN, I don't buy Gamecube games that suck. I avoided Spy Hunter because of their review. I later played it at a friend's place, I'm glad I didn't buy the game.
If you avoid 1 bad game purchase every 2-3 years from a subscription to a online gaming mag, it's paid for itself.
Alex
They make money off licensing and publishing. If I could download the Devkit, what would I pay MS for, a pretty little "seal of quality" logo? By controlling the Devkits, you only get one with a contract. The contract results in licensing fees.
MS needs to make money, not just lose money.
Alex
Microsoft hyped the Nvidia chipset and the P3 processor when they announced the project. They talked about the state-of-the-art components to get computer gamers to get excited.
Now they go down in flames.
Using an Intel x86 (with 20 years of backwards compatibility cruft) saves on R&D costs but increases chip chosts. Nintendo and Sony's decision to bite the R&D bullet but lower the component costs was the correct one.
Microsoft went in with the attitude of release Xbox, release Homestation in 2 years. The strategy was to launch a WebTV/UltimateTV/Xbox combo in two years. Two years to bring costs down (though you'd toss a big-ass hard drive in Homestation) so Homestation would be affordable (has to be less than $500, possible the $300 price point of Xbox).
By launching Xbox two years before the real product launch, they get some revenue from game sales and establish a beach head.
Xbox's failures in Japan and Europe will hurt badly. The real question will be if Homestation ever launches, and if so will it be an Xbox2 or Xbox+. Backwards compatibility is important in this strategy. Do they just add features (Xbox+) or rev the processor and just play the old games.
I don't know that MS can do this 2-3 year upgrade cycle, we'll see.
I agree with another poster in this article, MS damaged the PC Gaming market with this entry. They may really suffer for this or benefit. For Xbox to really take off, they want to kill PC gaming to be replaced with their console... we shall see.
Alex
MS Money never knocked off Intuit...
Had an interesting conversation with friend who works at Microsoft... He agrees that there isn't enough exposure to non-MS products among the employees.
MS wins by bundling, product dumping, etc...
Alex
The Saturn was the first system sold at a loss. It was NOT normal or usual prior to that. Sure consoles didn't make the money, games did, but the marginal loss was a Sega invention.
They build the Saturn, it was too expensive. They needed a hit to follow on the Genny and the 32X was a disaster. They sold at what the market could bear, losing money.
In fact, Sega tried to get the stores to lose money on the sales as well. The Saturn killed Sega. They then created a business model around moving LOTS of Dreamcasts and lots of games. They didn't have enough capital.
Sega died from poor business decisions.
The Gamecube is the first Nintendo system sold at a loss, and it is apparently in the $10-$20/console range, not the $100+ range of Xbox.
If you make money/break even on hardware, and make money on software, you make money in the console business. Sony copied Sega's practice of selling at a loss, but they successfully moved units.
Nintendo made more money than Sony's video game division did during the years that the PSX was destroying the N64.
If you make money on everything, you make money. All you risk is your initial fixed costs. If you lose money on each item and plan to make more elsewhere, you're running in dangerous territory.
Microsoft can afford to lose money for 4+ years to make it up in years 5 and 6. Sega couldn't.
Alex
Yes, I can check on the referrer field. Ya know, that still creates a problem if someone's browser doesn't properly report a referrer field, etc.
I'm not even talking frames, what if I were to structure two particular pages as a series to tell a story. Perhaps a before and after that it is important that users see in that story. That, for example, was the example given on useit.com.
I can tell the robots to stay out, and I think that being able to ask people not to fuck with me site is reasonable.
Your argument is that I should risk alienating a legit user whose browser is screwy on the referrer field because another webmaster is being an asshole. That's fucking bullshit.
I do far more complicated parsing of requests than you understand.
I really don't understand why everyone on Slashdot seems to advocate being an asshole. Do any of you have friends? I certainly wouldn't be friends with someone that steals stuff from my house while I'm in the bathroom then tells me that I shouldn't have let people rummage around my house without watching them. And the Slashdot attitude seems to suggest that.
Alex
Look, the content industry is doing some disasterous things to copyright, granted, but it really isn't something that should be front and center right now.
In case you forget, we're fighting a war in Afghanistan because we believe that the coordinators of some Kamikazi attacks on us happened there.
The White House is terrified that Iraq is close to weapons of mass destruction, and the "enlightened" Europeans are throwing a tempertantrum that Israel is defending itself. Europe is joining the fray by attacking Jews in their own country.
The Saudi regime is scared of an Islamist rebellion (which would cut off our oil access), and other problems that are forcing the Bush administration to back off Iraq, possible too long.
And you want them to DROP coverage of THIS to discuss attempts to make duplication of digital audio/video harder?
Ya know, I bet you lots of bullshit like this would have gone ignored during the last World War as well. Sometimes you need to get our of your Slashdot bubble.
Alex